Organize your network resources by learning how to design, manage, and maintain Active Directory. Updated to cover Windows Server 2012, the fifth edition of this bestselling book gives you a thorough grounding in Microsoft’s network directory service by explaining concepts in an easy-to-understand, narrative style.

You’ll negotiate a maze of technologies for deploying a scalable and reliable AD infrastructure, with new chapters on management tools, searching the AD database, authentication and security protocols, and Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS). This book provides real-world scenarios that let you apply what you’ve learned—ideal whether you’re a network administrator for a small business or a multinational enterprise.

Brian Desmond

Brian Desmond spends his days focused on Active Directory for some of the world's largest companies. A Microsoft MVP since 2004, Brian brings extensive knowledge of how Active Directory works and how to successfully run Active Directory deployments large and small.

Joe Richards

Joe Richards is a consultant / admin / tool writer who happens to have a secret identity as a Microsoft MVP for Windows Server Directory Services.His specialty is Directory Services but has "minors" in Security and Active Directory programming. By day he works for a large services/consulting/manufacturing company. He takes time to chat with people on listservs and newsgroups, write about stuff he knows, and whips up various fairly useful tools.

Robbie Allen

Robbie Allen is a technical leader at Cisco Systems, where he has been involved in the deployment of Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, and several network management solutions. Robbie was named a Windows Server MVP in 2004 and 2005 for his contributions to the Windows community and the publication of several popular O'Reilly books. Robbie is currently studying at MIT in its system design and management program. For more information, see Robbie's web site at www.rallenhome.com.

Alistair G. Lowe-Norris

Alistair G. Lowe-Norris is an Architectural Enterprise Strategy Consultant for Microsoft UK. He worked for Leicester University as the project manager and technical lead of the Rapid Deployment Program for Windows 2000, responsible for rolling out one of the world's largest deployments of Windows 2000 preceding release of the final product. Since 1998 he has been the technical editor and a monthly columnist for the Windows Scripting Solutions magazine and a technical editor and author for Windows & .NET Magazine (previously Windows NT Magazine and Windows 2000 Magazine).

The animals on the cover of Active Directory, Fifth Edition, are a domestic cat (felissilvetris) and her kitten. The domestic cat is a descendant of the African wild cat, whichfirst inhabited the planet one million years ago. Other early forerunners of the cat existedas many as 12 million years ago.The domestic cat is one of the most popular house pets in the world. There are hundredsof breeds of domestic cats, which weigh anywhere from 5 to 30 pounds, with an averageof 12 pounds. The cat is slightly longer than it is tall, with its body typically being longerthan its tail. Domestic cats can be any of 80 different colors and patterns. They oftenlive to be 15-20 years old; 10 years for a human life is about equal to 60 years for a cat.The cat’s gestation period is approximately two months, and each litter may containthree to seven cats. Mother cats teach their kittens to eat and to use litter boxes. Kittens ideally should not leave their mother’s sides until the age of 12 weeks and are consideredfull grown at the age of about three years.The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from Dover Pictorial Archive. The coverfont is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Adobe Minion Pro; the heading font isAdobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is Dalton Maag’s Ubuntu Mono.

This book is great as both a reference and to learn more about Active Directory. I've had some experience with AD, but not the depth of experience that the book goes in to. I highly recommend this book to be able to focus on different aspects of AD as a reference point and then to be able to read through the book to learn about designing, deploying, and running AD.